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Mexico's Hirving Lozano, celebrates scoring his side's opening goal during the group F match between Germany and Mexico at the 2018 soccer World Cup in the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, June 17, 2018. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Mexico beats defending champion Germany 1-0 at World Cup

June 17, 2018 - 2:34 pm

The Associated Press

MOSCOW (AP) — Defending World Cup champions have been finding it hard to get out of the group stage lately, and Germany is proving no exception.

The 2014 champions, ranked No. 1 in the world, were exposed defensively and surprisingly beaten by Mexico 1-0 on Sunday, putting its hopes of advancement in doubt.

Well, not everyone is in doubt.

"We will make it," Germany coach Joachim Loew said. "There's no reason to fall apart because you lose one game."

"I don't know if it's the biggest victory in (Mexico's) history, but one of the biggest for sure," Lozano said. "My teammates and I did some great work. We all ran our hearts out. This is the result of all that hard work."

Three of the previous four defending World Cup champions failed to reach the knockout stages, France, Italy and Spain. Two of them lost their opening matches while the Italians had to settle for a draw.

The Germans are bidding to become the first team to retain the World Cup title since Brazil in 1962, but have now won only one of their last seven games in all competitions. They hadn't lost an opening game since the then-West Germany fell 2-1 to Algeria in 1982.

Mexico had never beaten Germany in a competitive match but was transformed from the team which lost to the Germans 4-1 in last year's Confederations Cup, conceding twice in the opening eight minutes.

Lozano, a 22-year-old forward nicknamed "Chucky," got Mexico going with a deflected shot over the bar in the first minute. That set the tone for Mexico to torment Germany on the counterattack, with Lozano taking full advantage of right back Joshua Kimmich's tendency to go forward.

"We were nervous and we weren't playing the game we wanted to play," Loew said. "We need to see what caused this."